Tiny, touristy, laid-back Santa Fe is armed to the teeth against … whatever. Which were the other 4 towns? Reserve? How many did Wyoming get? mjh

ABQjournal: Santa Fe SWAT Team Unveils Its New Armored Bearcat By Jeremy Pawloski, Journal Staff Report

The Santa Fe Police Department’s SWAT Team has a new toy— a $250,000, armor-plated, bullet-resistant black Bearcat.

The Bearcat is built to intimidate, with gunports on its sides and huge wheels that can take it offroad virtually anywhere.

Primarily, the vehicle will be used in any situation that the SWAT Team needs it— hostage situations, extracting barricaded subjects, serving “high-risk” search warrants in narcotics investigations and protecting visiting dignitaries, according to Santa Fe SWAT Commander Lt. Gary Johnson. …

The five Bearcats distributed to various SWAT teams across New Mexico were paid for with state and federal Homeland Security grant money, according to Santa Fe SWAT Team Leader Officer John Schaerfl.

Schaerfl said the Bearcat has a built-in radiation detector and an “explosive atmosphere detector” that will sound an alarm in the event of a potentially explosive gas leak. A porthole at the top of the Bearcat allows SWAT members to peek outside. The vehicle also has air-conditioning and a CD player.

Gary Johnson said the Bearcat could be utilized in the event of any potential terrorist threats in New Mexico.

Dozens of the Wealthy Join to Fight Estate Tax Repeal by David Kay Johnston

SEATTLE, Feb. 13 — Some 120 wealthy Americans, including Warren E. Buffett, George Soros and the father of William H. Gates, are urging Congress not to repeal taxes on estates and gifts.

[Among those signing it are Mr. Soros, the billionaire financier; the philanthropist David Rockefeller Jr., former chairman of Rockefeller & Company; Steven C. Rockefeller, chairman of the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation; Agnes Gund, a philanthropist whose family owns stakes in many companies, and Ben Cohen, a founder of Ben & Jerry’s.]

President Bush has proposed phasing out those taxes by 2009. But a petition drive being organized here by Mr. Gates’s father, William H. Gates Sr., argues that “repealing the estate tax would enrich the heirs of America’s millionaires and billionaires while hurting families who struggle to make ends meet.”

The billions of dollars in government revenue lost “will inevitably be made up either by increasing taxes on those less able to pay or by cutting Social Security, Medicare, environmental protection and many other government programs so important to our nation’s continued well-being,” the petition says.

In addition to the loss of government revenue, the petition says, repeal would harm charities, to which many of the affluent make contributions as a way of reducing the size of their estates.

“The estate tax,” it says, “exerts a powerful and positive effect on charitable giving. Repeal would have a devastating impact on public charities.” …

Mr. Buffett said repealing the estate tax “would be a terrible mistake,” the equivalent of “choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics.” …

“We have come closer to a true meritocracy than anywhere else around the world,” he said. “You have mobility so people with talents can be put to the best use. Without the estate tax, you in effect will have an aristocracy of wealth, which means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity rather than merit.”

I’m an atheist who believes nationalism and zealotry are the roots of many of the world’s problems. So, you can imagine how horrifying it is for me to see bible-thumpers wrapped in flags, proclaiming Jesus as our true President. The formerly benign “god bless amerika” now gives me the creeps.

During channel surfing, I often linger over a Christian channel. I see things I like, especially the theatrics of T.D. Jakes. (I went through a brief period where I enjoyed Christian music videos — much more so than country.)

It is especially interesting to see the “Christian nation” propaganda that is always present reach a peak near the Fourth of July. There was a sermon on the wicked effort to misrepresent the Founders as Deists. I saw a special on His Holiness, George Christ Bush. Several times, I saw part of a concert held in the White House that seemed to feature only Christian music. It is especially chilling to watch the leader of the non-denominational US watch 5 youths jump off a Hitler Jugend poster and into the White House to sing about Amerika and the freedom we all enjoy, “thanks to that one man.” I know they don’t mean Jefferson, but I can’t tell if the mean Jesus or Duhbya. That room held 50 to 100 people. How many of them thought, “I can’t believe this is happening in the White House.” Any? It made me think of good times at Bergesgarten.

The White House is no longer the People’s House. It is a Christian Compound. We are one election away from Evangelicals demoting the rest of us to second-class citizens. Ironically, they will do this as part of a Religious Freedom Act, to protect them from persecution from secular humanists.

I think I’ll go burn a bible for the Fourth. mjh

For evangelicals, a bid to ‘reclaim America’ By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor | March 16, 2005

An energetic pastor who built Coral Ridge into a 10,000-member megachurch with far-reaching radio and TV audiences, the Rev. Dr. Kennedy regularly calls the US a Christian nation that should be governed by Christians. He has created a Center for Christian Statesmanship in Washington that seeks to evangelize members of Congress and their staffs, and to counsel conservative Christian officeholders. …

Christianity and patriotism are interwoven throughout the gathering, from Christian and American flags marched into the sanctuary, to red, white, and blue banners festooning the church complex, to a rousing “patriotic concert.” Several speakers emphasize the idea that America’s founders were largely Christian and that their intent was to establish a biblically based nation. (No mention is made of other influences on the Founding Fathers, such as Englightenment thinkers or issues of freedom of conscience.)

David Barton, a leading advocate for emphasizing Christianity in US history, deftly selects quotes from letters and historical documents to link major historical figures such as George Washington to a Christian vision, and to suggest that the courts and scholars in the last century have deliberately undermined the original intent of the Founding Fathers. …
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